Read the first of the new Robocop series. Was impressed - it feels like Robocop, has a pretty solid story, and the art's nicely done. I'm in for at least a few more issues.

Also been picking up the new Venom run, which feels like it was made specifically for me: someone who read every single one of Venom's short-lived solo series back when he was a teenager, lost track of the character over the course of the following disparate one-shots (where his character fluctuated wildly), and gave up for like 15 years. The new series acknowledges all that stuff happened, but glosses over everything after Venom: Finale.

Also back is my favorite iteration of Eddie, where he has the longer hair, wears the suit more often than not without the head, and has a minimal of green slobber.

Story is surprisingly good, which I think is a first for the entirety of Venom. A lot of new elements here I'm wholly into, including a way more interesting backstory for the symbiote race that involves it being present on Earth back in the 70's and, potentially, the viking era.

So yeah, they've got the character just right. Very optimistic to see where it goes.

In unrelated news I'm catching up on that Conan collection I got for Dirty Santa two years back, the one with the ice people, and holy shit does this series rule.

On the one hand, he sure is derivative. I have read Batman Adventures comics where I spent less time thinking "boy, this sure is a comic drawn by somebody who is imitating Bruce Timm."

On the other hand, y'know what? If you're going to copy somebody's style, Bruce Timm is a great fucking choice. Remember when everybody was trying to draw like Jim Lee? That sucked. Trying to draw like Bruce Timm is way better.

Also I can't find any scans of the page where Kraven is leaning up against the Kra-Van, but here's a good page of Squirrel Girl talking to Kraven.

I really don't know what to make of the Black Panther. In. SPAAAAAAAAAACE! arc.

"Okay, you guys, we've got a real opportunity here. New fanbase, new #1. You know what to do. Let's change the Black Panther comic up to appeal to our new audience. Let's make it more like that wildly popular movie. You know the one I'm talking about. That's right: Star Wars."

Simpsons Comics to end with issue #245; my LCS owner, Drew, suggested Bongo is likely shutting down entirely. (It only publishes one other comic at present, Spongebob Comics, and that's going on hiatus.)

This isn't entirely surprising; I don't think Groening has been involved in the day-to-day operations of the company in 20 years, the Futurama comic went all-digital awhile back, and co-founder Bill Morrison left the company last year and now runs Mad. Humor comics just don't plain sell well in America (though they're huge in Europe).

Drew also mentioned that there's talk of the licenses maybe getting picked up by IDW or Boom or some other publisher.

Miller doesn't go nearly far enough in condemning Holy Terror and his comments about Occupy, but given how low I've set the bar for him I'm impressed that he's distancing himself from them at all.

Neal Adams is more candid about why Miller went off the deep end.

Why did Miller take a years-long sabbatical from the medium he’d pursued his whole life? Adams blames the traditional trappings of fame – bad influences and alcohol.

[...]

In part, he blames Miller’s success for the years he says his friend sacrificed to that lesson. “You cannot accept other people’s view of you. You cannot believe when other people say, ‘Oh my God, you’re great, you’re a legend.’ You cannot accept that. It’s no way to live. And as soon as you do, you start convincing yourself that you’re something that you’re not, that somehow you can drink two bottles of whiskey and nothing will happen to you.”

That doesn't excuse Holy Terror; alcoholism doesn't make you a bigot. But it goes a long way toward answering the question we heard so much in 2011: "What happened to him?"

I'm glad to hear he's doing better, and I hope his future work is a return to the old, charming Frank Miller madness instead of the bad, deranged-man-screaming-on-a-street-corner kind.

For a marketing stunt, Wakanda Forever by Nnedi Okorafor and Oleg Okunev (a comic where the Dora Milaje team up with Spider-Man and then the X-Men and then the Avengers) turned out to be a pretty solid character piece rooted in '90s Panther continuity. To the point where, despite its obvious intention to serve as a jumping-on point for people who saw the movie, it's hard for me to recommend to people who haven't read the Priest or Coates comics.

It's about Nakia, who's one of those characters where the movie version has nothing in common with the comic version except a name. In Priest's comics, Nakia was a Dora Milaje who became obsessed with T'Challa and went supervillain. I haven't read every Panther comic of the last twenty years but I've read most of them, and I'm pretty sure no other writer has used her until now (though Priest himself brought her back for a short story in a recent Black Panther Annual).

Wakanda Forever is a satisfying return to the character, who's fallen on hard times: the drug that gives her her powers is killing her, and she wants to see her king one last time before she dies.

For the most part, Okunev's art didn't do it for me; his work on Nakia is the exception. His depiction of Nakia as a stooped, emaciated addict is eerie, and suits a story where she's treated more as a tragic figure than a supervillain.

Anyway, I liked it. Might be worth checking out in a trade, if you're a '90s Panther fan like I am.